There were forests on the way there
Day five of an early-spring bikepack through the Scottish Highlands
The night was cold and clear, with crunchy frost coating the grass and stars upon stars in the fathomless sky. I slept reasonably well after regaining the body heat I’d leaked while sitting down in my wet shoes to a cold dinner of ham and soft cheese on English rye. I was beginning to regret my decision not to bring a stove. Having some source of heat that didn’t have to be generated by my body — even if it was just a hot cup of herbal tea — seemed like the height of luxury in this frozen swamp.
Danni also admitted to enduring a fitful sleep on this unexpectedly cold night. I suppose I don’t know what we were expecting. I had vaguely anticipated being wet and cold in constant rain, so these clear days and nights were comparatively gentle. Still, temperatures that doubtlessly dipped into the low 20s were brisk for my summer bag and ultralight tent.
While languishing in the morning shadows and waiting for the warmth of the sun, we were surprised by a solo mountain biker who passed through our camp while looking for the trail. Is this really a trail that people ride on purpose, and if so, why? This is what I wanted to ask him, but instead, we pointed out the general direction of the “bridleway” and asked about the route behind him. He described severe rutting and mud, and casually slipped in that he was an Ironman triathlete, but “this is harder.” So we expected the next six miles would be similar to our slog on the bridleway.
For the first half mile, we encountered the same knee-deep mud pits and stream crossings we’d battled the previous evening. But soon the track improved. After a mile, there were sections of flowing, dry trail to break up the swamp plunges.
We made several crossings of the River Feshie, which the lone biker had also described as a difficult obstacle. I was grateful for the opportunity to wash my still-soaked shoes and tights of most of the remaining remnants of the heinous bog. Given the lone biker’s interpretation of this as a challenging section of trail, I wondered how he was faring with the truly heinous bog that he had to contend with now.
After the third or fourth river crossing, we were just over a mile from the bothy and feeling smug as we sprawled out shoeless in the sun, drying our macerated feet. Shortly after this blissful break, the trail veered up onto an embankment and climbed a hundred feet above the river along a steep side slope. We didn’t know this at the time, but according to a Highlands walking site, “a landslide at An Cagàin destroyed the path around a decade ago, but the passage of many feet has worn a new route across the slip.”
Those many feet cut a narrow and crumbling path that plunged steeply toward the river below. It disappeared entirely at a particularly precarious gully. The three of us spent more than a half hour at this spot, scouting potential high routes around the gap (there were none) before finally deciding that the three of us working together could ferry our bikes across without plunging to the depths. Amber, the first in line, removed her single large pannier and unexpectedly tossed it across the gap. It bounced once, stalled for a brief nail-biting moment, and then rolled back into the abyss, gaining momentum until it splashed down in the river.
“Oh, fuck me,” Amber screamed, and without another word jumped into a near-vertical chute full of loose landslide debris as her bag floated a short distance and stalled on some rocks in the river.
“Be careful Amber,” I mumbled meekly, feeling lightheaded. My anxiety-ridden brain imagined her starting to roll as her bag did, and then we’d have a real emergency. But Amber understandably did not want to lose the bulk of her camping gear and other possessions. Luckily, Amber is a gifted athlete with swift reflexes, and she’s also a field researcher who spends a lot of time navigating tricky terrain in the mountains of Montana. She made her way safely down to the river in time to rescue her bag from the current.
After she returned, we took up positions to hand the bikes across. Since I was already the person in the middle of the group, I ended up in the steepest, loosest part of the gully, which did not sit well with my already roiling stomach. But I managed to hold it together — thank you brain! At least, that is, until we were finally across the worst of it but still on a narrow foot-beaten “path” in the gully. Amber took extra time to (understandably) sort through her wet gear. As interminable seconds ticked, I stared up at the massive rockfall that appeared unstable and only briefly suspended in place. My shoulders began to twitch and I nearly broke into panic before I impatiently picked up my bike and carried it around her.
After a seeming lifetime of climbing barren passes and fording rivers and bogs and landslides through the heart of the Cairngorms, we arrived at the Ruigh Aiteachain bothy, also known as “Glen Feshie.” This posh stone hut is part of a large estate that is striving to recapture the Scotland of old. According to the Highlands walking site: “The pinewoods in the glen were slowly dying due to overgrazing by too many deer until Anders Povlsen bought the estate in 2006. He had deer numbers reduced to more natural levels that the land can support, and a spectacular transformation began as the native pinewoods began to recover.”
It was a joy to be back beneath a canopy of old-growth Scots pines, but we soon found ourselves pedaling aimlessly in a maze of estate trails that seemed to lead back to themselves. Amber and Danni found a potential river crossing to the road we knew we needed to access. I was being stubborn and insisted I could find a bridge. I’m not sure where this conviction came from. Maybe it’s because the previous day, I had made a wobbly footbridge appear simply by wishing for any way to avoid fording the River Eidart. My shoes were already soaked and I’m also not sure why I was so insistent on finding a bridge, but we ended up splitting up again. After more aimless pedaling, I finally settled on my own mellow river crossing, then rode back and forth on the paved road until we’d reconnected.
After we reunited, we enjoyed a fast descent all the way to Aviemore. We followed the road rather than Barry’s prescribed route to the River Spey, where I found my way back onto Barry’s faint tracks and meandering paths because I was terrified of the prospect of riding the A9. Aviemore had — joy of joys — a Tesco! Tesco was our favorite resupply spot. The store reminds me of a mix between a Walmart and a Trader Joe’s. It’s an enormous supermarket full of interesting snacks and convenience foods. I always wanted to try one of everything and emerged with a reduced haul I could barely fit in my bike as it was. I’d turned my dinners into a fancy charcuterie spread with butter biscuits, air-dried ham, small bites of various kinds of cheese, raspberries, and lemon cake. If I couldn’t have a hot meal, at least I could dine in style.
From Aviemore, we again turned south toward the Cairngorms. Although I’d decided Glen Tilt was my favorite section of the route, in hindsight, this was even more spectacular. Evening light saturated the distant snow-capped hills (we were becoming such late risers) as we pedaled through the Caledonian forest. A gate prevented access to all but human-powered travelers, which made the region feel cut off and remote. We began a strenuous climb as the forest gave way to shrubland and saturated alpine tundra. There were frequent burn (creek) crossings over Am Beanaidh, all rideable but splashy enough to evoke yelps as icy water again soaked my shoes and tights.
At the top of a particularly steep pitch, I encountered a solo white-haired gentleman riding an e-bike. He carried an ice ax and crampons strapped to a large backpack. I asked him where he had been climbing and he pointed to the jagged summit of Sgor Gaoith. He had a dreamy look on his face as he described the icy couloir he’d ascended. “It’s like another world up there,” he said.
“I need to climb some Munros,” I replied as I turned my gaze to the sweep of broken crags that made a lofty 3,667 feet of altitude look like a gateway to the moon. “Next time.”
I told him we planned to camp on Loch Einich, a large tarn at the end of the valley beneath Sgor Gaoith.
“Look for the Northern Lights tonight,” he suggested. “It’s supposed to be a good night for them.”
I had been hearing about ongoing solar flares, but it hadn’t before occurred to me to expect the aurora borealis at 57 degrees North in Scotland. I promised him I’d keep a lookout.
Loch Einich was like a dream, like its own gateway to another world. As the sun sank beneath the cliffs overhead, blue waters rippled in a stiff evening breeze. It was predictably windy here, and it took some wrangling to set up my ultralight tent. But the sky remained implausibly clear, and we had the entire valley to ourselves for the night.
We were back at an altitude of 1,800 feet. Given the clear skies and breathtaking windchill, the night promised to be very cold, likely the coldest night yet. Still, while huddled on the edge of the lake at twilight, I daydreamed about finding the fortitude to sit outside all night, waiting for the aurora to whisk me away to another dimension entirely.
I recently came across this person's YouTube channel and thought you might be interested in checking it out: https://www.youtube.com/@alwaysanotheradventure/featured
His Adventure Cycling videos are mostly about bikepacking in Scotland and he has links to his routes on Komoot in the video descriptions. I think he does a great job with his videos. They are very professional. (He formerly worked for the BBC.)
Author extrordinary, thank you for writing that does carry my imagination with you, even if only for minutes. Rich.